Her Name
by Starhey
Summary: A little girl with big brown eyes used to come to this lake years ago. I don't even know what her name was, but I felt that her soul was just like mine, and that she understood what it felt like to be broken. There was no need of more, no need for her to see me to make me feel seen. / Edited


**So, this one had too many typos, it was written in such a hurry… anyway, here is the corrected version. Enjoy :D**

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**I had this little idea, I hope you like it. **

**(If you find any mistakes, please point them out, it helps me with my English)**

**Enjoy **

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Her Name.

My oldest memory comes from here, from this very lake in this very forest. It's been almost two hundred years since that day I opened my eyes and my questions without an answer were born. This is the place where I first understood how the rest of my life was going to be, how lonely. Here is also the place where I discovered what I was capable of and what my gift was. And here in Burgess, I felt for the first time the only kind of coldness a winter spirit could feel… the coldness that comes from my heart when a person walks through me.

With time, I learned how to manipulate the wind so it would take me away. I have visited other places, far more beautiful than Burgess, but it never mattered how amazing they were, I always came back. And I still do.

This is the place I call my home.

Whenever I travel around, at least I can pretend the kids somehow see me through my icy creations. I can pretend that I am laughing with them, that they hear what I say, that they know me. But in the forest it's so quiet that it's useless to even try to pretend that I'm realer. The dark waters of the lake have a strength that is capable of forcing me into accepting this nothing that I am. The quiet moon seems to be mocking my solitude. Being in this forest makes me feel sad and alone, and it just doesn't make sense, this need of staying here…

This place that I'm so attached to, is the only place on Earth that makes me feel so deeply and completely alone that I end up wondering why can't I just die like everybody else.

I've had quite enough time to think about a reason for this attachment, and I've come up with lots of theories. But there's one that I like the most. It is about a memory of something that happened in this same lake long ago, and it made me feel so alive that I guess I just keep on coming here to make sure that it was real.

It is a memory about a nameless girl.

_According to my calculations, that night was the second anniversary of my birth… if you could call it that. Well, I mean it had already been two years since the night I emerged from the frozen waters and the Moon spoke to me for the last time since. I was flying back home after spending a few weeks visiting some near villages. I had been travelling around, looking for someone who could see me. I was sure I'd find somebody pretty soon, but for that day my search needed to be put on hold, because for some reason, I felt the urge to spend such an occasion at home. _

_I could see Burgess's lake from there already, and in a matter of seconds I was above it. I landed on the grass with a muffled sound that disturbed the creepy silence of the night. I looked around, feeling nervous. I had the kind of feeling that you get when bad news surprise you. I walked around, leaving a trail of frost behind my steps._

_The clouds were covering the moon and without its light it was practically impossible to see a thing._

"_Who's there?" I found myself asking, almost instinctively. I noticed that I was scared, but I didn't even know what of. Maybe it was just my imagination playing tricks on me, or my feelings were too disturbed by the knowledge of it being two years of this invisibility… _

_But wait! This time I was sure I heard something, coming from somewhere behind the tall bushes. I flew to the top of a tree across the lake, staring at the point where I thought the sound had come from. _

_Was it a whisper? A cry?_

_The bushes moved, and I tightened my hands around my staff, preparing for what might come from behind the leaves…_

_A little girl took a step into the valley. She kept on walking right towards the lake, leaving tiny footprints behind her. Her gaze was focused down, but not as if she was concentrating on the ground, but rather as if she was trying to avoid concentrating in something else. When she made it to the edge of the water, she sat down hugging her knees, and after a few moments, she finally looked up. _

_As soon as I could see her face, I was entranced. _

_Without a second thought, I flew towards her, and remained floating above the lake, my head inches away from hers. I stared right into her eyes, and some tiny voice in my head felt sad because she could not stare back, but it was easy to ignore it. I was more interested about her than about my little voices. She must have been about ten years old, perhaps eleven. She had brown hair and big brown eyes that reflected the few stars shining that night. She had a beauty mark under her right eye. Almost without noticing, I smiled. _

_I wondered who that girl was, and why such a young child would be out all alone in the middle of a dark night. And why was her sudden presence so comforting? She had been there only for a few minutes and I already felt that the air was warmer. I studied her features, easier a task because she didn't move at all. She just stared ahead, observing the iced water while I memorized all the details of her face. It was impossible to not notice that she was sad. Very sad. _

_What could possibly be that tragic? I turned around and watched my lake, as if I would find an answer there. May be she was looking for an answer too. I wished I could help her find it, but I didn't even know what the problem was. _

_I did the best thing I could do in my situation. I sat right next to her, and stared at the lake like she did. I would make her some company, even if she couldn't know I was there. _

_We both stayed sitting there until morning came and she left. I knew she hadn't found what she had come looking for. _

As I remember, I walk to the same spot in which I sat with her that night, longing for the feeling she made me experience with her mere presence. It is something I have not felt ever since those times, when she was around. I sit down, and I stare at the little lake. It has changed a little, and it isn't frozen now, but I still can pretend I will find her answer, hidden in the waters' waves.

_I was almost falling asleep when I heard the bushes moving, and there she was. It had already been about nine months since she first came, and I still couldn't get used to her visits… well, I didn't even know if that would be the proper name, because it wasn't exactly as if she came to visit me, but in some kind of way, it always felt as if she did. _

_Sometimes she would walk around, circling the lake. Sometimes she would just sit there, by the edge. Sometimes, she would touch the cold water with the tip of her fingers. Sometimes she would lean against a tree. But she was always staring at the lake. And she was always sad. And I was always by her side. _

_That night she stayed by the bushes, and I came down from my tree to stand besides her. I was still wondering who she was or why she came here, but it really didn't matter to me. I enjoyed to have her around, and to look at those permanently sad brown eyes. _

_I was just too curious about her. In a way, she seemed really familiar, but the reason of that was just another one of my questions without an answer. I thought of her as my friend, although we had never actually spoken or established any kind of contact, for that matter. But if I was sure of something, was that friends help each other and I really did believe that that was something that we actually did. _

_She helped me with my sadness and my loneliness, even if she didn't know, and I helped her with hers, even if she didn't know that either. _

_The girl let out a heavy sigh that pulled me out of my train of thought. I had noticed by then that she wasn't the crying type, but even without any tears, that was probably one of the times that she seemed most miserable. She closed the big brown eyes and buried her face in her knees. _

_I just stared at her, getting furious with myself, because I got the terrible feeling that I knew exactly what to say to make her feel better. I even felt that I knew what her name was…_

_But if that was the case, then I had forgotten. And I never was able to remember. _

Just by the simple thought of it, I still get angry with myself, so angry I could scream right now. I put my hands by the sides of my temples, standing from my sitting spot in the corner of the lake, and close my eyes really hard. Two hundred years later and I still can feel like way down deep inside me I know what I should have said. And her name, it feels as if it was trapped inside my bones, and to this day is still fighting to come back from oblivion and reach my voice for me to call her, even If now is too late and she won't answer. Standing here, it's easy to allow that feeling to overwhelm me, the feeling that I never could make her sadness go away.

I close my eyes even tighter and beg to myself for the millionth time in my existence "Please, remember."

_It had been six years since I awoke to find myself floating in the middle of the frozen water. Those days, I started traveling more and more, and every time my trips were longer and to more distanced places. By that point, I had already gotten most impatient about founding someone who could see me. But anywhere I went, I was just as invisible as ever. _

_On the other hand, I had gained more control over my abilities and was able to use them for my own advantage. It kept getting easier day by day to do whatever I wanted with my powers, and I was always trying new tricks, eventually achieving success. That was pretty cool, and I worked hard everyday to become better, not that I had something else to do, really. _

_That night, I came back to Burgess with the winter. I landed right next to the familiar pond… and the familiar anonymous girl. _

_She had changed much since the first day I saw her, but I hadn't. She was taller, and stronger, and older, and sadder. But my favorite things remained the same, like her bright eyes and the beauty mark below one of them, or her habit of coming to my valley in the night. It was truth that she didn't come as usually as before, but it was all the same because I also wasn't home as much. Now I saw her only every now and then, but it still was relieving to stand beside her, looking among my lake for whatever it was that she had lost. _

_Because I was sure that my nameless girl had lost something, I saw it in her beautiful eyes. They'd always seemed to have a missing sparkle and had a tiny shadow instead, and that shadow was exactly the same as a shadow I had inside me, a shadow that was always yearning to find a missing piece. I had gotten kind of used to the painful shadow, and perhaps she was getting used to hers too, and that was the reason why she came less. Maybe she had finally realized that she would never find her missing sparkle, and that it was pointless to keep on looking. _

_But probably, just like me, she had the irresistible need to come back at least once in a while, just in case someday things would turn out differently._

_A part of me really wished someday she could find what her soul was craving for, but a more selfish part was terrified that she would, because then she wouldn't return again, and I would have lost the most similar person to me that I had ever had. _

I get it now, that she was just as alone and as sad as I was, and maybe that was why I was so fond of her, why I needed her so much. I felt that her soul was just like mine, and that she understood what it felt like to be broken. There was no need of more, no need for her to see me to make me feel seen.

I touch my heart. I can't feel it, but I know it is not complete.

It still has its shadow.

_I had been away from home for months. I was desperate by then. I only came home every once in a while, before leaving again for another long period of time, unable to stay still and to finally accept that maybe my search for someone who could see me really would turn out unsuccessful and I actually was no one. _

_But how? And why? Why was I cursed with this silent existence? The Moon gave no answer. And neither did time… I had been looking for almost fifteen years. It was positively sickening, I had practically traveled around the globe searching for someone who would just see me and acknowledge that there is a guy named Jack Frost. Was I asking for much? _

_The wind carried me back home, but I didn't even notice. I was submerged in a crazy ocean of frustration and despair. The touch of the grass against my feet pulled my out of my trance, and I had to blink once or twice before I realized where I was. I let out an angry groan, but decided to stay anyway. I could use a break to renovate my hopes and start the search one more time. _

_Moved by the force of an old, old habit, I went to sit in a very specific spot by the edger of the lake, in which, lately, I had been sitting just by myself. I stared at the slow movement of the water, and while I drifted off to sleep, I thought about how all my nightmare had begun right there…_

_Her cries woke me up at once. They were quiet as the whisper of the air, but she was sitting right next to me and I could hear them clearly. I jumped into standing, taken aback by how much she was different. I hadn't seen her for quite a while, but whenever I remembered to think of her, the image that would pop into my mind was the one of the little girl with shaky steps, walking for the first time into the valley, hence it was so surprising to see her then. She had aged. Thinking about it, she was the only person I cared enough for to even notice how she grew old. There she was, a young woman, but I still thought of her as if she was small and fragile. I still had the old need to protect her. _

_The other thing that was different, and that surprised me even more, was that she was crying. She had always been sad, but she had never cried. I realized that I didn't know what to do to make her stop crying, forgetting that there was nothing I could actually do, being invisible. The tears in her eyes made her look like the girl from my memories, and just like I had done when she was younger, I just stayed by her side and helped her by holding my gaze into the water. _

_She stayed the whole night, but she didn't stop crying, tears streaming down her face without stop. The moon was absent and the sky was dark, but I could still see her eyes shining… and somehow, those big brown eyes made me remember why I needed to keep looking for someone who could see me even if I had to cross the world a hundred times. They gave me hope again by making me feel what it was like to have someone who understood. If someone had asked me right then to describe her eyes in one word, the word would have been 'me'… _

_The sun came. She stood up and so did I. _

"_She has left, too. I hope she finds you." she whispered to the lake while the last silent tear rolled down her face. _

_And for me, that was it. I didn't know her name, and I had barely heard her voice before. Her past was also unknown, and those words she said were a mystery. Everything about her was a secret kept from me, and the only few things I knew about her, were probably secretes kept from everyone else. She was a complete and total mystery, but with those words I felt her pain, our pain, striking me like a furious lightning. _

_I reached out my fingers to wipe the last tear away, but of course, she couldn't notice. _

_The tear fell frozen to the dirt._

I sit down again, touching with my fingers the place where I think the tear landed. I must admit that it's getting confusing after all this time. I think about the first time I saw her once more, when I realized that she was suffering. I think of how she seemed too familiar it felt as if I was remembering her instead of meeting her. There was no light when she first came into the valley, but anyway she brought light. I didn't know then that lights go out.

_That night the moon was shining bright over Burgess. _

_The air was warm in spite of my presence, and the water of my lake remained liquid. I had learned how to control my powers better, and it was easier for me to freeze things when I wanted to but also to not freeze them when I didn't. My abilities over ice and snow and wind were the most important thing to me in the world. It had been years since I accepted that I truly was meant to remain invisible and alone, but I discovered that I could be seen through winter. Maybe I was nothing to people, but what I did was something they sure were able to see. It was still lonely, but it made feel as if I existed even when I wasn't believed in. I still had no answers, but I just had sunk in that that's the way my life was supposed to be, and coldness is the only company I would ever have. _

_I saw the bushes across the lake moving, and before I saw her I knew it was her. She took a step into the valley, and I wondered if I could have been able to recognize her without looking at the big brown eyes. I knew it was easy for me to loose the track of time, but I didn't expect her to be that old. She was tiny and fragile once again, but this time it was the consequence of the pass of the years. Her hair was as white as mine. The shaky steps she made remembered me of the ones she had made years ago, and how I was obsessed with her at once… funny that I never stopped to consider that she would grow old. _

_She sat down in the usual spot, and I floated down the tree, remaining across the lake. As always, her eyes remained fixed into the water. I studied her a little more, and decided that those eyes weren't the only thing left from that little girl. There was also her beauty mark, and her rosy cheeks, and of course, her sadness. All those things had remained young. I also noticed that I never thought her so vulnerable before. _

_There was something different that wasn't in her. It was on the atmosphere, even when the moon shone and the air was warm, the whole place seemed to get grimmer. My breathing became heavy while I watched her, a terrible feeling growing heavily above my shoulders, making my heart cold. _

_I felt the imperious need to go to her, but it wasn't the same kind of impulse that had made me sit by her side all those years. I walked through the lake in her direction, freezing the water with every step I took. By the time I was standing on the water in front of her, she had already noticed the trail of ice that had grown towards her from across the lake. _

_She raised her head up, facing my eyes. The light of the Moon illuminated her sad features through me, my body not making a shadow. She was still beautiful in her own miserable way. _

_I never knew what made her extend her hand towards the light, but she slowly did. She seemed so sad, and so tired… My hand reached to hers. I loved so much the nameless girl that I was almost sure that I would be able to take hold of her hand. _

_I couldn´t. Her fingers went right through my opened palm…_

_But then, in that exact moment, for the first and last time ever I saw her smile._

Many decades have passed and she has slowly faded away. It keeps getting harder and harder to remember with detail how her face was, or even the exact brown of her eyes, and I can't even tell under which eye her beauty mark was. But that moment and her smile have never left me.

That was the last time I ever saw her. Sometimes I wish I could have said goodbye, but perhaps I did. That moment under the moonlight felt like goodbye.

Even when she is slipping from my mind, I like to think that it is my heart that remembers her. It's true that I never found out who she was, but I will never, ever forget that girl without a name, because she made feel a little bit less lonely.

I keep her inside me like a secret, and whenever I feel like I don't exist, I come back to Burgess and sit by the lake where I used to sit with her, and I just stare at the water, remembering that even though she never knew it, she was the one that made this place become my home.

_**.**_

"_**I had a sister! I saved her!"**_

_**.**_


End file.
